Fitness Mom Runs Afoul of Facebook ... Again

The California fitness trainer and mother of three accused of "body shaming" on Facebook a month ago is temporarily banned from the site for another controversial post.

A California fitness trainer and mother of three was banned from Facebook for 48 hours after she published a post last week which was highly critical of a Curvy Girl Lingerie marketing campaign promoting body confidence in plus-sized women.

Maria Kang of Sacramento first came under fire in October when she posted a picture showing her toned body in skimpy fitness attire along with her three children aged eight months, two, and three. The photo carried the tagline "What's your excuse?" issued as an apparent challenge to women struggling to shed baby weight, or perhaps a more general one aimed at anyone not in possession of rock-hard abs like Kang.

That post sparked a firestorm online, with critics assailing Kang as a "body shamer." Her more recent post was more overt in its criticism of what she said was a marketing campaign which "normalizes being unhealthy." The Curvy Girl promotion solicited "selfie" photos of plus-sized women wearing lingerie.

"We need to change this strange mentality we are breeding in the U.S. and start celebrating people who are a result of hard work, dedication and discipline," she wrote in the Facebook post which landed her in hot water with the social network. Kang found herself banned from the site last Friday, she wrote on her personal site.

Facebook also deleted the post from Kang's Facebook Timeline, citing its guidelines against "hate speech." Kang maintains a copy of the original post on her site.

But after locking Kang out of Facebook for about 48 hours, the site lifted the ban after reportedly deciding it had been administered in error. Facebook "called the incident an 'error' and has apologized to Kang, but says her post will not be restored," Yahoo Shine reported on Monday.

Kang addressed the vitriol directed at her in a post on her site titled "Sorry but not sorry," saying she felt "completely misunderstood."

"While I speak strongly about making one's health a priority, the very last thing I intended to express was any level of shame. No one should be ashamed of who they are, at the same time, in order to desire something greater, you have toat some levelbe uncomfortable with where you are at. When we normalize being unhealthy we create complacency to positively change," she wrote.

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle and Japan Times, among other newspapers and periodicals.
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